


Left Unspoken

by flipflop_diva



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Pre-Relationship, Steve Rogers Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 21:28:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7378033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/pseuds/flipflop_diva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn't that Steve regretted the choices he made that led them here. But the consequences? Those he regretted. Especially the things he didn't say to a certain redheaded spy. Because now it might be too late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Left Unspoken

**Author's Note:**

  * For [csichick_2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/csichick_2/gifts).



The worst part about being an international fugitive hiding out in the fog-covered lands of Wakanda was that it gave him too much time to reflect on everything that went wrong and everything he regretted. The memories of the wrong choices haunted him every time he closed his eyes, and when they were open, all he could see were the weary faces surrounding him, not to mention the one that looked back at him in the mirror, all of them reminding him of things he wished they didn’t.

It wasn’t that he didn’t believe anymore in what they had done. It had been the right thing to do. Protect Bucky. Get to the truth. Don’t give in to the people who wanted to impose their own will when he didn’t believe for a second those people had the best interests of not only them but the world in mind.

But with time had come perception that wasn’t there before, and for every unintended bad consequence came a new layer of guilt that refused to be assuaged. The sight of his friends, the ones who had stood by his side and fought their friends all because Steve was their leader and they trusted he was right, trapped in cages like they were animals. The expression still on Wanda’s face, even two months later, that told of horrors he couldn’t even comprehend. The pain on Clint’s face and Scott’s when it was just one more day they couldn’t go home to their children. The cyro machine down under the palace where his best friend was once again asleep. Maybe for months or years. Or forever.

Sometimes it was too much. They had given up the life they had once happily been living — being Avengers, training together, fighting together — to become wanted criminals. They had fought their friends, watched one of their own fall from the sky. Their gear was gone, their lives were on hold.

Sometimes it was hard to remember it had been worth it. 

And then there was her. It had been eighty-four days since he last saw her, standing in front of him with an almost resigned expression on her face. He knew how much what she had done for him had cost her, and he had stood there and let her do it anyway. 

And now he didn’t even know where she was, if she was okay, if she was alive. He didn’t know if he would ever see her again, and he hated to think about what the sharp pain in his gut meant every time he thought that.

“She’s okay, Steve.” He hadn’t even heard Sam come up beside him, hadn’t even realized he’d been squeezing the grainy, faded newspaper photo between his fingers again. He’d ripped it out of the paper T’Challa had left on the table one morning after breakfast a few days after they’d arrived. He hadn’t read any of the words — he didn’t need to; he could guess what it said about her, what it called her — but it was the closest thing he had to her for now. It wasn’t like they had been able to pack photos before they’d run.

“You don’t know that,” he replied.

“Of course she’s okay,” Sam said gently. “She’s Natasha.”

“She’s all alone.”

“She’s used to being alone.”

“Not anymore.”

Steve felt Sam shift beside him, but he kept his eyes focused on the view out the window. He knew Sam was trying to make him feel better, but the constant worry, the constant guilt, couldn’t be relieved by simple words, no matter how true they might be.

What Sam said next surprised him, though.

“Maybe it’s time you go find her.”

Steve blinked at him. “I wouldn’t know where to start.” 

Natasha was good at many, many things, but one of the best was making sure she wasn’t found unless she wanted to be. And Steve wasn’t sure she would want to be found by him. If she did, he figured she would have let him know in some way.

“No,” Sam said slowly. “But there’s someone here who probably does know.”

Steve let that sink in for a second. “Clint,” he breathed.

“You really think he hasn’t heard from her?” Sam shrugged. “I’d think he’d be a lot more concerned if he didn’t know she was okay.”

“He’s worried about his family …”

“Natasha _is_ his family.”

Steve ran a hand through his hair. It made sense. He’d always suspected Nat and Clint had ways of talking to each other that didn’t involve telephones or other usual means. And Sam was right that he wouldn’t have gone eighty-four days without at least finding out if she were okay. And the other way around too.

“Okay,” Steve said. “I’ll talk to him.”

•••

He found Clint playing video games with Scott in the rec room on the fourth floor of the palace. It stretched almost the entire length of the west wing, and most of the team had been using it constantly, for games and for as much training as they could manage — and were allowed without their powers or their gear or without being able to spend extended amounts of time outside where someone might see them.

“Can I talk to you a sec?” Steve asked Clint when the two guys hit a break in their game and looked up.

Scott stood. “I’m going to go call Cassie anyway. She should just be waking up now.”

As Scott exited the room, Clint leaned back against the couch, arms crossed lightly over his chest, staring expectantly up at Steve. Steve shifted, suddenly uncomfortable. He wondered if the room felt warm to anyone else or if it was just his extraordinary body heat doing him in.

“Sam, uh, said, that uh …” Steve stopped, took a deep breathe, tried again. “Sam said you might have a way to reach Natasha.”

Clint’s expression didn’t change. Steve had no idea what the other man was thinking. For a second, Steve wondered if Nat had been training him on that. Another one of her amazing skills.

“I might.”

A swoosh of breath left Steve’s mouth. A rush of relief he didn’t even know he was holding. “She’s okay?”

“She says she is.”

Steve frowned. “What does that mean?”

“Just what it sounds like.”

“You don’t believe her?”

“Natasha’s hard to read. Especially in a two-word message.” Clint left it at that. Steve nodded.

“But you can get her a message?”

“Maybe.”

Steve felt his patience waning. “Clint!” But Clint just shook his head.

“You’re gonna have to tell me what you want before I tell you if I can do it.”

“I just … I want to know if she’s okay. If she’s really okay.”

Clint raised a brow.

“I’d like for you to tell her that I’m worried about her and I want to know that she’s okay.”

The eyebrows crept a little higher.

Steve sighed. “And if she wants to … join us here, I can talk to T’Challa. He let the rest of us in. He’s not going to hold what she did against her.”

Now Clint tilted his head, still with that same expectant stare. Steve almost growled. 

“I miss her,” he said. “Okay? I want her to come here so I know she’s okay and because I miss her.”

Clint’s head tilted a little more. “And that’s it?”

Steve’s patience was gone. “God dammit, Clint, I’m not going to have you tell her I love her in a coded message from you!”

It wasn’t until Steve noticed that Clint was now practically beaming at him that he realized what he said.

“Dammit,” Steve muttered to himself, and he rubbed his forehead. It really was hot in here. But Clint looked almost deliriously happy.

“You two are both idiots, do you know that? Both of you.” He sounded delighted by this.

“What does that mean?”

Clint grinned even wider. “It means I’ll contact her, you dummy.”

•••

It was three very excruciatingly long days before Clint walked up to Steve after breakfast and held out his hand. Steve glanced down to see a small slip of paper in Clint’s fingers, and he tried to hide the feeling of relief that flooded through his body.

“If I give you this,” Clint said, “You promise me something.”

“Anything.” 

“You make sure you get her to come here. Don’t you dare mess this up.”

“I won’t.”

Clint placed the paper in Steve’s palm. “Go,” he said. “Get our girl.”

Steve waited until Clint had turned around and exited the dining area before daring to look at the little folded paper. On it, in Clint’s scraggly handwriting, were ten messily written numbers. A phone number. For Natasha.

Steve’s breath caught in his throat. It had been eighty-five days.

“I’m going to regret this,” she had said the last time he’d seen her, before she stunned T’Challa. He didn’t know if she regretted any of it. But he did. So much. Regretted letting her give up her freedom, her life with the Avengers, for him. Regretted that he hadn’t told her before, when he was living down the hall from her, when he got to stand next her every day and see her and talk to her and hear her laugh, how he felt about her. Regretted that he might have let the best thing that could ever happen to him in this new world disappear without a trace.

He folded the little piece of paper and slipped it into his pocket. All he had to do now was summon up the nerve and call her.

•••

He borrowed a phone from T’Challa and made his way to the furthest edge of the property before dialing. She answered on the fourth ring, enough time for Steve to contemplate hanging up at least ten times and feeling his stomach crawl into his throat. It was also enough time to imagine a hundred different scenarios for how this conversation could go. It hadn’t been nearly this difficult the last time he called her, after the bombing of the Accords signing, when all that he had been worried about was making sure she answered so he knew she was okay.

“Hi, stranger.”

It was like coming up for air after a lifetime of being without it. 

“Nat,” he whispered into the phone, letting his words hang there between them, letting himself take comfort that she was there, on the other side of the line. But he couldn’t wait forever. “How are you?” he asked her quietly.

“I’m fine.” 

He wished he could see her, could see her eyes when she answered, could see if the muscle in her jaw tensed any, if her shoulders were stiff, if her fingers flickered just a hair. After all these years, he had finally learned how to read her with just a look but it was harder with just the sound of her voice, always steady, always calm.

“How are you really?” he asked. “And you be honest with me.” He almost felt her smile over the distance between them. 

“I’ll be fine,” she said. 

“You don’t have to be alone.”

“Steve …”

“I’ve talked to T’Challa. He’ll let you come.”

“Steve, I don’t think …”

“Please, Nat.” The words were spilling out of his mouth before he could think. It wasn’t what he had meant to say, it wasn’t what he had planned out in his head. Talk to her, give her an option, explain the reasoning, let her decide. But now, here, the phone pressed to his, knowing she was _there_ and just wanting to see her, wanting to touch her, he couldn’t just put the phone down and walk away. He couldn’t just hang up and let her go.

“Please,” he whispered again, and he could hear her sigh, her breath a slight whisper on the other end of the phone. “The team needs you. Wanda, Clint, Sam … everyone’s a mess. Wanda, she looks up to you. And Clint, you know he wants to see you. It would mean a lot of if you were.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“I need you, Nat.” Another thing he hadn’t meant to say, just slipping out. “Please come.”

This time her sigh was louder, longer. Resigned maybe.

“I’ll think about it.”

It wasn’t an answer, but it was a start. And for now, it was enough.

The connection clicked in his ear, signaling she had hung up. He let his finger trace the phone.

“I love you, Nat,” he told the shiny black object, testing the words out on his tongue. They felt nice. “And someday I’ll tell you. I promise.”


End file.
